June 14, 2005

Summer Fun

Summertime, the part of the year that is annoyingly hot and I continually curse the sun. I hate that stupid life-giving star! It blinds me in the morning on my way to work. My skin turns to a bright red, peels, and freckles, no matter how much sunscreen I use because of it. It makes the temperature get above 65 degrees. Damn you sun! Damn you! There is only one way to battle a hot summer day. WATER FIGHT!

Last night when I got home from work, it was again annoyingly hot. Clone and Boopie where both asking to go out and play. They wanted me to set up the inflatable pool we bought last year. When I checked it out, I discovered it had ripped along the bottom. Well, that wasn’t going to work. I then decided to get out this sprinkler made for kids that we have. It is designed to get people wet, not water the lawn.

While digging out the sprinkler I found my squirt guns. Yes, they are mine. I bought them for me! After I set up the sprinkler, I pulled out a tin tub to set with it so that the water would collect in it to fill the squirt guns. I turned on the sprinkler and the boys started having fun. Clone would run up to it and get a little wet and go running away. Boopie would try to run between the drops as to not get wet. He said the water was too cold. Me, I stood in the bucket. When the tub filled enough, I pulled out one of the squirt guns. It is nothing more then a tube with a handle on it. You stick the tip in the water and pull back the handle to load it. When you push the handle forward, it squirts the water. Depending how hard you push on the handle depends on how far it shoots. We have three like this, one for each of us. Boopie picked up another one and started loading his. Clone picked up a third and kept trying to figure out how to use it.

Boopie and I started out with target practice because we were rusty. We aimed for the wind catcher on one of my wife’s wind chimes. If we hit it, it would make noise. It was a good target. Clone started getting upset because he wanted to load and shoot his gun. However, he could not figure it out. Every time I tried to show him, he would get mad and start yelling, “I DO IT! I DO IT!” After a while, he wanted my squirt gun, because his was obviously broken. He’d yell, “MY TURN! MY TURN!” while reaching for it. We traded squirt guns, he had my fully loaded tube o’ water and I had his empty one. As I filled my new gun up, I watched as Clone struggled to pick up the toy. With all the water in it, not only was it longer then him, but it was too heavy for him to hold the muzzle up. He’d get mad because I was shooting the squirt gun, drop the fully loaded one again as it was obviously broken and want the one I had so he could squirt water. We traded guns probably 30 times, each time I tried to explain the mechanics behind it. He, however, did not want anything to do with my silly logic and explanations. He wanted to squirt water!

Boopie gave Clone a water grenade to play with to see if that would appease him. A water grenade is nothing more then a sponge with a fabric coating. Clone would dip it in the water and throw it. When it landed, it made a big splash much to his amusement. He would laugh in that deep belly laugh only that little kids can do.

Boopie pulled out a super soaker he has. Because he was pulling out the big guns, I had to get my super soaker. My super soaker is over 6 years old. It has three settings for the thickness of the streams. 2X, 10X and 20X the normal stream. It has a decent sized tank and is the Continual Pressure System. That means that it will always shoot the same distance as long as there is pressure in the tank. It does not slowly fade away. The only problem with this is that when I set it to 20X the normal stream, I empty the water reservoir with one shot that lasts about .5 seconds. That stream of water has a lot of force behind it. Boopie and my wife refer to that squirt gun as “The Fire Hose”. When I first bought it, Boopie was 6 years old. The entire family bought squirt guns. We went out in the back yard to have a squirt gun fight. I set it to 20X, pumped it up and waited. Boopie came running around the corner of the house shooting at me. My shot was beautiful; I hit him with that .5 second burst right in the middle of his chest. Boopie was knocked over from the hit. With my first shot, I drenched him from head to toe in water. There was not a dry spot on him. To this day, he does not like playing squirt gun wars when I use the “Fire Hose”.

Boopie and I started our fight; I would shoot at him with the stream on its low 2X. He however would not shoot back. I am hot, sweaty, and wanting to be hit with that ice-cold hose water, but neither boy will shoot at me. Clone can’t figure out how to pick up, let alone make the gun squirt, with out hitting himself. I would shoot Boopie and he would drop his squirt gun. The rules in the house say you cannot squirt someone that doesn’t have a squirt gun or while they are filling it with water. However, I did try to squirt my wife while she was gardening… I like it when my wife is wet. ;) Boopie's whole strategy was to lure me in close, drop his gun and wait for me to go away. *I* was not being hit with water! It sucked!

Finally, Clone picked up his squirt gun, and came up to shoot me. I helped him by holding onto the nozzle and let him push the handle. He had great fun squirting daddy with his gun. He would be mad when it was empty. He didn’t understand the whole, “You need to reload” concept. He also didn’t like when I would squirt him back. He’d get mad and cry, but laugh while he squirted me. I explained to him that if he is going to squirt other people, then he would be squirted as well. He decided it was worth the trade of to soak daddy with cold water. This whole ordeal went on for about an hour and a half.

I was able to spend some fun time with my boys playing and laughing. We all had fun. It’s times like this that I’m grateful for my boys. They make life so much better. I will always cherish playing with them.